Rip Van Wrinkle

Rip Van Wrinkle Rip's escape and Irving's conservative attitude As a henpecked husband, he is truly cowardly daring not to revolt. As a healthy man in a family, he concentrates little on conditions of families' living environment and disregard the growth of his own children. Eventually, Rip, under the intolerable suffering, he escaped forlornly with a shotgun. this unexpected escape contains little things that strikes readers' heart. On the contrary, there are romantic experience and magic encounter. He meets a group of odd-looking people playing at nine-pins. Out of curiosity, and being a thirsty soul, he drinks their wine and falls asleep. He wakes up to find his dog gone and his gun rusted. Back in his village, he is amazed at the tremendous changes that have taken place in that he thinks is just one night. His friends vanished, and so have other things he was familiar with. The large "Union Hotel" with a flag of stars and stripes, the people around him and so on are all strange to him. However, after he discoveres he has slept for twenty years that his wife has died, he is extremely happy. Finally, the long-term suppression under his wife will turn belly up. Rip escapes from the despotism successfully. This short novel with its excellent skill eliminates a fantasy tale about a man who somehow steps outside the main stream of life. Reading into this humorous story, we may find the conservative aspect of Irving's attitude towards American institution. He holds the view that changes are not always for the better. Under his pen, Rip is excited not beacuse the peace and harmony and has no feelings in front of the scramble for power between parties. Instead of feeling happy about the country finally independent from the yoke if British colonial rule, Rip is pleased with his new life chiefly beacuse he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony. Rip's happiness illustrates Irving's argument well that revolution upset the natural order of things. He is a nostalgic writer pursing the original living style and social pattern. In some people's view, this attitude is obsolete, while i think it is not vital to discuss this topic since history is continuing insistently without interruption. It doesn't matter we think differently on this topic beacause the change of history also contains the good and the bad in the process. What we must pay more attention to is Irving's writing skill. He described the beautiful sceneries with magical words for highlighting the superstitious atmosphere of the total story, which giving the novel a kind of epic characters and coordinate with old tales from Netherlands. That is which the value lies in. Rip Van Wrinkle's escape is similar to the escape in one old Chinese prose named Peach Blossom Spring but there is something contrary essentially. For Wrinkle, he escape from the heavy burden coming from his life. However, the author, Tao Yuanming's escape is, in a degree, from the disappointment from the real world. In the real world, the latter tried to devote himself to promote the society, but the former did little for a better life.